Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

Synopsis
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is trying to integrate into the modern world after being frozen since World War II. To occupy his time, he takes on missions for SHIELD. When director of SHIELD Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is attacked by a mysterious assailant known as the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Steve must confront an enemy from his past, an enemy he thought was long forgotten.

Review
Oh Marvel, you clever people. Few studios can continuously churn out movies the way you do and maintain such a high quality. Captain America: The Winter Soldier continues Marvel’s excellent Phase 2 slate of movies by stepping on the accelerator and never slowing down. Add equal parts action, spy thriller, and character development, with a great reveal and an explosive ending that leaves the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a new status-quo, and you’ve got yourself a movie that not only excels as a superhero movie, but an action and spy thriller as well.

The movie starts with Cap going on a mission to free SHIELD agents kidnapped when their ship is hijacked by pirates (which introduced Batroc the Leaper, played by former UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre, into the Cinematic Universe). This scene shows much about how Cap thinks about the world, about how soldiers should trust each other, and sows seeds of his doubt about working for such a secretive organization such as SHIELD. It was the first look at his mindset and the rest of the movie does great to build off what is seen in this first scene (well technically second but the first was the opening scene so it doesn’t count).

The action only continues to grow from there. All the action set pieces are huge and look amazing. Every action sequence is filled to the brim with explosions and/or hand-to-hand combat, all of which are extremely well choreographed. The scenes with the Winter Soldier were especially exhilarating. Going back to the opening scene and the ship infiltration scene I mentioned, it is clearly obvious Cap has a significant strength advantage over, well, pretty much everyone else. What’s great about the Winter Soldier is he gives Cap an adversary that not only had a personal connection with him, but also could match Cap blow for blow.

Cap’s fighting style has evolved much since he donned his shield back in The First Avenger. In that film he wasn’t using it much since he was just starting. And in The Avengers, he was throwing his shield around and using his military combat training, but his fighting style still wasn’t yet that developed. But in this movie, we get to see what Cap is truly capable of as a man in peak physical condition. He is very acrobatic, leaping around his enemies and parkouring around his environment and utilizing his shield more offensively and effectively.

I was surprised how much screen time Agent Sitwell has. I always thought he was just a SHIELD agent that Marvel could throw in to give the audience a familiar face. That’s changed. He has a significant role this time around. I’ve always felt Maximiliano Hernandez did great with the part, so it was cool to see him in a more expanded role. On the flip side, I was hoping Agent 13, aka Sharon Carter aka Peggy Carter’s daughter (although that part wasn’t explained in the movie), played by Emily VanCamp, would have more screen time. I guess there were enough new characters introduced that someone had to go on the backseat. Hopefully she will have a larger role in Captain America 3.

Marvel has done well to develop strong villains in their movies, most of whom have some sort of personal relationship with the hero. The villain here, more than just the Winter Soldier, has a close relationship with Cap. I was taken aback when they showed their true colors and revealed themselves. Not only was the reveal executed effectively, but they had a deep motivation to their actions.

As I said before, the action in The Winter Soldier is huge and spectacular. However, there was one problem: it was hard to see it with the camera shaking so much! The shaky-cam can be used as an interesting effect, but when it is used all the time, it becomes jarring and irritating and is one of my movie pet peeves. I would have loved to see the fight between Cap and The Winter Soldier in all its glory, especially because it was clear a lot of effort went into making it exhilarating.

From the first explosive scene, you know right away you are in for a wild ride. Even during the non-action scenes, Captain America: The Winter Soldier keeps you interested in what is happening on screen. The action set pieces are huge and impressive, with some well choreographed hand-to-hand fights thrown in for good measure. Caps style has really grown since he first picked up his shield and he shows what a super soldier is capable of. Sitwell had a larger part than anticipated, which is welcome since I have always enjoyed the character. The reveal of the villain is well done and even took me somewhat by surprise. Even if you pick it up from the trailer, it isn’t exactly what you think. As cool as the action was, it was shot using the shaky-cam effect, making the awesome action sequences difficult to watch. Without a doubt, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has left the Marvel Cinematic Universe drastically changed and I can’t wait to see how the pieces are picked up in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

14 thoughts on “Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review”

I seem to be in the minority on this one. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great movie, but I don’t think it is Marvel’s best. The Winter Soldier just has the bad luck of existing along side movies like The Avengers and Iron Man.

Thanks! Please do. By Kevin I hope you mean Kevin Feige ;). ‘Streamlined’ is an interesting way to describe this review because it is my longest to date (but also my favorite/best review I’ve done so far in my opinion).

I did tweet both Marvel and Kevin Feige on twitter, although you can’t see it on my WordPress. I’ll have to change my setting on WP so that you can see it. Kevin hasn’t been active on his twitter page, but I thought I’d post it to him anyways. No problem. Streamlined is a word I haven’t used before in complimenting a movie review by a blogger, but it is the top three words I could describe a brilliantly written review such as yours. Streamlined means in my opinion, just very concise and not getting off course of what you are trying to convey to the reader. THIS is also one of my top 5 favorite movie reviews too! Great job and please continue hammering out those reviews! Oh. There is a movie coming out called “Chef” that I’d love for you to review! You can check out the trailer. It has some great actors in it. 😀

I guess my idea of streamlined is a little different from yours. When I think of streamlined I think short and to the point, like the last paragraph would be a streamlined version of the rest of the review. Thank you for the kind words. And don’t worry, the reviews will keep coming! I did see the trailer for Chef and I will say it is high up there on my to-see list come May.

Haha. I’m a girl so I think of fashion when it comes to streamlining. Hehe. Like jackets. Long and centered. I guess it’s a gender thing. I don’t know. My mind has been fried the past 5 months. I am very exhausted. I come on WP to relax and get my mind off of tough decisions. It will soon finish and I will hopefully get back to a somewhat normal life once again, which includes blogging too. I’m so excited you want to see Chef too! What a cast, yes?!

Uh, yea! So here’s a more accurate synopsis: “After years of working as head of security at Stark Industries, Happy decided to take up his passion as a chef. After his boss, Bernie Focker, makes him cook a menu he isn’t passionate about, Happy turns to his old friend Tony Stark for a loan to buy a taco truck. Meanwhile, Black Widow gets close to Happy as a means to keep tabs on Tony.”

Hahahhahahaha! Omg, that was hysterical Drew! You made my night!!!! I’ll remember this when I’m sitting in the theater next month just before it starts. Seriously, can’t wait to read your review. I’ll tweet it, of course, and I just might….review it too. Thanks for the laughs!! 😛

Good review Drew. As expected, I had a fun time with this. However, for the first 30 minutes, I had no clue what the main conflict was supposed to be. Eventually, it worked out, but damn, I thought I was sleeping or something.

Nice review, Drew! I’m glad you liked this one, too! Y’know, I’ve heard several people complain about the shaky camera. I didn’t notice it so much, which is bad because I think I’ve become desensitized to it…lol. When I notice it, it does drive me crazy.

Thanks! For the longest time I didn’t notice a shaky camera either. Then about 2 years ago I read an article about how it is becoming more popular and now I always notice it. I guess ignorance is bliss.